Biggest Loser: Retailers, Heinz or QR Codes?

ByScott Galloway ·

2 July 2015

Winners & Losers in Your Inbox.

FitBit won big this week, with a successful IPO debut and $7 billion valuation. The company’s Q1 revenue surged 200% and profits rose an impressive 440%. However, we think FitBit won’t be able to keep up the pace.

Major retailers of the ‘90s are losing. A week after we described J. Crew’s plunge, Gap announced that sales had fallen 10%. Why? The middle is disappearing. Consumers either want Vuitton or fast fashion. As a result, Uniqlo is winning. The company reported $13.6 million in sales last year and is likely to overtake Gap in terms of revenue in the next year.

Another winner: Starbucks. Consumers spend more on tech and hot beverages than clothes.

The color blue is losing. Although many top brands have chosen blue for their logos, a recent study suggested that blue isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Looking back at 66 brands we identified as Genius in 2004, we saw that only 20% had a blue logo, while one-third were black.

Labels can be tricky. When a consumer scanned a QR code on a Heinz ketchup bottle that was supposed to bring him to the website for a 2012 Heinz social media campaign, he was instead redirected to a German porn site. But is the loser Heinz, for not retaining the domain — or QR Codes, because it took that long for someone to notice?